La Cruz defined the World Series of Boxing

HAVANA.- The Cuba Domadores won the 8th edition of World Series of Boxing (WSB) by defeating the Kazakhstan Astana Arlans in the second leg of the grand final with stage at the Jinjiang Zuchang Stadium, in China.

After also winning 3-2 in the first leg, the Caribbean squad beat 4-1 the defending champions, now in the C-2 format, result that gave them an overall victory of 7-3.

The wins of the Domadores went to Lazaro Alvarez (60 kilos), Roniel Iglesias (69), Julio Cesar la Cruz (81) of Camagüey and Jose Larduet (+91), while Jorge Griñan (52) suffered the only loss of the winning side.

The latter, 2016 youth global runner-up, lost 3-0 to Saken Bibossinov in the opening bout of the evening and the final match was tied 3-3, but then the rest of the Cuban crew gave no margin to doubts when winning the four remaining fights.

All Cuban victories were 3-0 and started when the 3-time AIBA universal champion Alvarez beat Zakir Safiullin, 2015 Asian runner up; and then, the Olympic and world monarch Iglesias took revenge on Aslanbek Shymbergenov, who had previously defeated him twice.

In the fourth bout, La Cruz, Olympic and world king, secured the Domadores final triumph by easily surpassing Bek Nurmaganbet, global youth silver medalist; while in the final fight of the match, Larduet, 2009 global bronze medalist, beat Kamshybek Kunkabayev, 2017 world runner-up.

Thus, the Cuba Domadores achieved their third WSB title and tied in amount of scepters with the Arlans, who had defeated them twice in the finals of 2015 and 2017.

The latter also won the 2012-13 edition, Cuba didn´t attend that contest, but the Caribbean franchise was the champion in 2013-14, its debut in WSB, and in 2016.